ANOTHER VIEW
THE NEW ATHEISTS
A rash of bestseller books and international debates has brought several atheists into public prominence. They argue that we now know for certain that God does not exist because natural processes can explain everything from lightening to life, from the origin of the universe to the origin of your ability to read this article. Richard Dawkins, leader of the pack, admits that cosmology still holds many mysteries as to why the cosmos appears highly fined tuned for life, but he has faith—oops, I mean, hope–that eventually cosmology will have a breakthrough similar to the one Darwin gave biology.
The tragedy of 9/11 fuels the new atheism. They like to point out, “See, this is where belief in God takes you. You can do terrible things including killing yourself and others if you believe that’s what God wants you to do and will reward you in the next life.” They like to lump all religions together and claim that more evil has been done in the name of God than any other way. They think that at best religious belief is a benign delusion and at worst the root of all the world’s evils.
Let the new atheists bask in the limelight. But they have one glaring problem in their logic. When it comes to the question of good and evil, they want to have their cake and eat it too. For example, when pressed about whether morality is absolute (for example, is lying, or stealing, or murder absolutely wrong) Sam Harris said that, yes, some things are absolutely wrong. But…why? is it because Harris says it is, or because someone else says it is, or because our genetics say it is?
There is a certain irony in all this, because the atheists build their philosophical argument against God and religion by pointing out all the evil and suffering in the world, while at the same time, we can see that without God there is no real right or wrong.
If there is no God who defines absolute morality with a corresponding set of ultimate punishments and rewards for evil thoughts and behavior, then morality must become relative to culture or even individual preference. On what ground can they say that religion is bad? The Spanish Inquisitions killed several thousand people, but that’s what they wanted to do, who says it was bad? Are the new atheists the new gods, determining and judging what is right and wrong, good and evil? How can they in the same breath say there is no God and then pronounce authoritatively that all the wars and suicide bombings done in his name are evil? It may be their personal opinion, but no more. No doubt the terrorists who flew into the Trade Towers were convinced by their standard of morality that they were doing a good and honorable thing. If there is no God, then morality will be decided by the people with the bigger weapons.
Morality only becomes absolute when there is a “Lawgiver” transcending culture, language, race, and time possessing the power to judge perfectly. Even in our human justice system, we measure out the severity of punishment for something in proportion to how evil it is. When a guilty person escapes without any punishment our sense of justice feels deeply offended and dissatisfied. However, if there is no God, then there is no final “judgment day”, no final recompensing with rewards or punishments, no difference in the final destiny of Hitler or Gandhi, Lincoln or Bin Laden, all will end in a purely natural conflagration and disintegration into particles. There is either a moral Judge overseeing all, or there are no universal morals. It can’t be both ways. So the new atheists don’t want God, they are free to choose; but they should honestly admit (like Nietzsche did) that with atheism we are afloat on a sea with no compass to steer by, and no true North to follow even if we had one. On second thought, who says the new atheists ought to be honest?
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